The radio system problems have far reaching consequences and puts every city employee that relies on a city radio at risk if they call for help in an emergency situation. The ones with the most serious risk are the Police Officers and Fire Fighters that are called on to protect citizens on a daily basis and are frequently put in harms way during their daily duties. These problems also expose the City of Portsmouth to liability problems because numerous people (myself included) have made the management of the Portsmouth Police Department aware of the problem but they have chosen to ignore it until recently when some courageous officers have directly contacted several City Counsel members about the problem. The Police management never even made the Portsmouth’s Chief Executive Officer City Manager Kenneth Chandler aware of these issues. I would love to take credit for spilling the beans to the City Counsel but I was actually trying to meet with City Manager Kenneth Chandler shortly before he terminated me about these very issues. His Executive Assistant never contacted me back about the meeting. In fact I attended the Portsmouth City Counsel Public Work session on the issue and was surprised to hear City Manager Kenneth Chandler asked the City Counsel if it was a serious problem and why he was not made aware of it.
Their are significant coverage problems with the current system when an employee is using a handheld radio in Churchland. In December of last year an officer was out on patrol and came across a volatile situation. During the course of the incident his handheld radio was not able to be received by the police dispatchers in the 911 center to send him help. He was holding a suspect at gunpoint that had just brandished a firearm at another person while restraining a second suspect. Click on the word audio to listen to the audio and hear for yourself how bad the radio problem can be.
This is not an isolated problem, it has happened frequently for a long period of time and is especially prevalent when the city is using the backup radio site on top of the city jail. The backup site on the jail is a very poor location to provide city-wide coverage and because the antenna is 187 feet lower then the Primary site on Frederick Blvd it does not provide even close to the reception coverage that the Primary site covers. Click on the word email and you can read an email one officer sent up his chain of command to try and make sure that the problem gets addressed. Again months later they have only a partial solution using a limited number of “repeaters” they have put in a select few police and fire vehicle.
These vehicle repeaters while a step in the right direction fall far short of correcting the problem. Click here for a flow diagram showing where the radio signals travel. They require procedures that have to be followed to get them to work that will make them problematic for a Police Officer. First the Police Vehicle has to be left running for them to work because they require significant power. Second, the officer has to switch his channel selector on his portable radio to a certain channel to communicate with the repeater in his vehicle which then retransmits his audio to the dispatch center or other officers. In normal routine day-to-day calls this is not normally a problem but if an emergency situation occurs and the officer might have to jump out of his police vehicle to chase a suspect then the opportunity for disaster is there. It will be difficult for an officer to take the time, reach down to the radio on his belt switch the channel selector to the correct channel. Not easy things to do when your trying to ran after a suspect, watch where they go, watch for weapons and keep track of where your running. It’s a recipe for disaster. The real solution to the radio problems is to install a new simulcast radio site in Churchland. The Motorola equipment cost alone would be in excess of $1,000,000 and that does not take into consideration a location to install the Motorola radio equipment or a tower to mount the antenna’s on. But again, the City of Portsmouth has it’s priorities, what’s a Police or Firefighters life worth compared to a new Holiday Inn.
There are other problems with the departments current operational policies that need to be addressed. Again attempts have been made but the Management of the Portsmouth Police Department does not like change and the “we’ve always done it that way” attitude is alive and well. Click here to read an email memo about suggested changes to enhance mutual aid communications. I submitted the memo and no one even bothered to contact me back either to ask questions or ask for help in implementation. Currently if the Portsmouth Radio System fails the officers are directed to go to the nearest Fire Station to make phone contact with the 911 Dispatch Center. This method is antiquated and inefficient. Portsmouth and all the surrounding cities have “Mutual Aid” channels and agreements in place to allow for the use of those channels in an emergency. They are independent of the Portsmouth system so all an Officer has to do is switch his handheld radio or vehicle radio channel to one of the “Mutual Aid” channels and they can communicate with Portsmouth Dispatch and other Portsmouth Units or another cities 911 dispatch center. The City of Norfolk and City of Chesapeake’s radio systems offer excellent coverage in most parts of Portsmouth and this method would be far more efficient then going to a Fire Station and using the phone. It provides a significant enhancement to Officer and Fire Fighter safety as they can communicate directly with other units and the 911 center if an emergency develops where they couldn’t if they were using telephones. The city frequently rely on their employee’s personal cellphones but they sure don’t pay for there usage. Portsmouth Police units have been in multijurisdictional vehicle pursuits and could not talk to any other agency that is assisting because their is no training or policy in place to coordinate the radio communications. Portsmouth has been in vehicle pursuits on the interstate with a State Police vehicle in the next lane and no method in place to communicate with them over the radio. The technology has been in place for all these safety enhancing procedures but a lack of vision by the City of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Police Department leave the citizens and the emergency services in jeopardy and leave in place unsafe antiquated procedures.
To any of the Portsmouth Officials that might be reading this post I would be happy to help out in implementing any of these procedures or policy changes as a volunteer consultant because these issues are too important to not fix when we have the technology in place it just needs to be implemented. Here’s a novel idea, how about all the local cites form a committee and formulate procedures for multijurisdictional incidents that require communications between different agencies. Again the technology has been here for sometime but no one wants to sit down and work out the details.
Virginia Beach at least has the right idea. They managed to get a multi-million dollar Port Security grant and installed a multichannel repeater system on the top of the Town Center. System has excellent coverage but again another resource that goes unused for the most part and no procedures in place in Portsmouth to take advantage of an available resource that might be important in a crisis when it’s to late to figure out how to use it. Portsmouth just received a $300,000 federal grant to move a communications link involving the Virginia Beach sponsored ORION communications system from one tower in Portsmouth to another yet they can’t (or won’t even try to) come up with the funds to make it safe for the city employee’s and Public Safety Personel.
To my friends and comrades in Public Service .. Be safe out there .. To the Citizens of Portsmouth contact your elected officials if your unhappy about some of these issues ..
